CREATURES OF THE WILDERNESS 67 



trunk, knocked the man's head against the 

 ground, after which he tossed the body from 

 his forearm to his hind leg and stamped the 

 life out of his victim. Meanwhile his own 

 mahout promptly mounted the elephant whose 

 mahout had been killed and, with the third 

 elephant and mahout, hurried away a distance 

 of a few hundred yards and then halted to see 

 what would happen. What did happen, to the 

 surprise of everyone, was that the riderless 

 elephant came up as quietly and meekly as 

 possible, and when his own mahout spoke to him 

 from the neck of the animal he was riding, he 

 readily obeyed the customary words of com- 

 mand. So he descended, and his own elephant 

 assisted him to mount, as usual, showing that 

 the fit of rage was over. Such extraordinary 

 conduct on this occasion was subsequently 

 explained by the records of the dead mahout's 

 service. He had taken this Khandesh elephant 

 to the Abyssinian War, in 1867, and from that 

 campaign the poor brute returned in a terrible 

 condition and covered with sores. The mahout, 

 on getting back to India, was given leave and 

 was subsequently given charge of another 

 elephant at a distant station, never again 

 meeting with the animal he had ill-treated 

 until this affair in 1870. He had forgotten 

 the elephant, no doubt, but the elephant had 

 neither forgotten the discomforts of the Abys- 

 sinian service nor forgiven the author of them. 

 " Another remarkable instance of the sagacity 

 of elephants came under my notice in Mysore 

 in 1905, when Lord Elgin was going to 



